Law Minister Farooq H. Naik has signed a summary for the release of the Indian prisoner Surjeet Singh and forwarded it to the Interior Ministry with instructions to immediately release the Indian prisoner as he has completed his jail term.

Surjeet Singh, a BSF sepoy, was arrested in 1982 on charges of espionage. A military court had awarded him the death sentence. Then military dictator Gen. Zial ul Haq did not act on the mercy petition, but later then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment. Surjeet Singh, despite having completed his life sentence in 2004, making his ongoing detention a case of illegal confinement.

India last month unprecedentedly allowed Pakistani scientist Dr Khalil Chishty, convicted for murder, to return to Pakistan on bail.

Meanwhile, efforts continue for the release of Sarabjit Singh, 49, who has been languishing in Pakistani jail since 1990 after being sentenced to death for involvement in bomb blasts in Multan and Lahore. The name nominated on the FIR was Manjeet Singh.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had requested President Asif Ali Zardari during his visit to New Delhi to release the Sarabjit Singh.

Retired Indian Supreme Court Justice Markandey Katju had also sent an appeal to President Zardari that was widely published. He had pointed out that the principal witness Shaukat Salim had retracted his statement which he said was given under police pressure.

“The other evidence was of Sarjit’s alleged confession, but everyone knows how confessions are obtained in our countries (by third degree methods),” he said. “At any event, 21 years in death row with a Damocles’ sword hanging over one’s head is enough to drive anyone mad. Is this punishment (even assuming he was guilty) not enough?”